Masters of the Universe

I used to date a Bond trader who called New York the 'center of the universe'. And it felt like it - 10, 5 even 2 years ago. However that universe collapsed upon itself this weekend, on the eve of the wine full moon. The giants of Wall Street - Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers toppled in dizzying succession. In the past 2 weeks the government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Tuesday past, the Federal Reserve announced it would loan $85 billion to my employer (so far) AIG, giving the government a 79% governing share in the stock.

What the hell's going on? Says Daniel Altman of the Herald Tribune:

These are big, significant changes. Though they may be signs of trouble in the short term, they have to be healthy in the long term. The financial industry, as we have learned in the past year or so, had some very deeply ingrained bad habits. A cleansing was in order.

Interestingly enough, many finance pundits while staggered by the events of a cataclysmic September predict the same future: It's time for change. Roger Cohen, professor and financial expert offered this insight in his article The King is Dead.

So that's what "financial killing" really means. No better illustration exists of a culture where private gain has eclipsed the public good, public service, even public decency, and where the cult of the individual has caused the commonwealth to wither. That's the culture we've lived with. It's over now. Some new American beginning is needed.

The spiritual community has it's own take on the economic events. Andrew Harvey, founder of Sacred Activism (loosely defined as grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive), offered this in an interview with Grace Cathedral, an Episcopalian Church in San Francisco:

Given the current economy and state of world affairs, many people feel they're undergoing some sort of dark night.

See, the power that is doing this to us is coming towards us simultaneously with terrifying destruction and extreme grace and prosperity. The destruction is, in fact, a form of that extreme grace. It's quite clear that humanity is now terminally ill, and can only be transfigured by a totally shocking revelation of its shadow side. And this is what we're living through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have done nothing but betray the sacred in us.

We have lacerated the sacred in others. We have betrayed the sacred in an orgy of fundamentalism. We have brutalized the sacred in nature. We are now terminally destructive.

So only an almost terminal destruction that reveals to us the full extent of our responsibility in this destruction can wake us up. And that is what is happening, and it will get worse. It's bound to get worse. But it is only being done to us for our own redemption.

I'll try to remember that as I review my Lehman Brothers and AIG stock shares and contemplate a postponed retirement. Or recalculate my financial investments as Jon Stewart so adroitly recommends:

For anybody out there who’s been living in a cave: congratulations. You’ve apparently made the soundest real estate investment possible. (9/23/08)